Fractelle, before you start throwing around phrases like "chips on shoulders" to legitimate criticisms, I would first consider that the whole league of feminists have them, including yourself. No more so than those feminists who despise women's success in the fashion industry.

Fractelle>"I am a feminist because I believe in equal opportunities for all regardless of gender."

That is nothing but a rationalisation of your sexism. You are certainly an extreme minority, as 99% of feminists would disagree with you. Also there is no reason for feminism to be called what it is if it's about both genders. The level of baldness in such a stance is amazing, considering your support of Bronwyn whose only concern was for the "premature sexualisation of young **girls**", and only girls. It's like seeing a racist describe their love of all peoples, no matter what race. If you support both genders you can lose the title and send a memo to the rest of the feminist population.

Fractelle>"That is the starting point. From there we (feminists) may be religious or atheist, Liberal or libertarian... whatever."

This is another great description of your ideology and indoctrination. In your "broad church" of feminism, you think you are feminist before all else, even athiesm, which is the natural birth state of man..... Are you reminding feminists that their priorites are first and foremost to the "broad church" of feminism? If this is the case, you have just revealed how closely you identify with this, as if you associate it with your gender alone...it would be strange for a man to be a feminist before all else, wouldn't it?

Fractelle>"One thing I do know, the price of freedom is constant vigilance"

Are the general population vigilant? No. Are feminists who are part of The Church? Of course not. I find the necessity to use religious symbolism (and it has been noted) to describe your relationship and support of feminism to be egregious. Religion requires faith, not reason or facts. Hence your choices here are corrosive because of this reliance on faith above reason and logic.

Veronika

"I probably sounded a bit ridiculous talking about my feminist mates, so you're right to call me on it."

It's always refreshing to see posters willing to make concessions. Much appreciated! It's also good to see another strong and articulate voice picking up the feminist baton here on OLO. We've lost a few such voices lately, so your presence is very welcome!

"But I don't like the way MTR and her organisation exert pressure on young, vulnerable girls to continue with pregnancies they may not really want."

I agree, if this is the case. I'm not sure how much pressure Melinda actually exerts, but I don't follow the abortion issue all that closely so won't attempt to defend her on that score. Like you, I too believe that all women should have the right to choose abortion if that seems the best option to them in their particular circumstances. Some of Melinda's criticisms on both abortion and cloning though do resonate with me to some extent, particularly those relating to medical control and long-term health issues.

Fractelle

“However I am disturbed that you feel you should 'qualify' your belief in feminism.

For example Bronwyn: ‘I too consider myself a moderate feminist...’

Good to see you back again!

I agree entirely. We shouldn't need to qualify our position.

Declaring myself a 'moderate feminist' was purely a response to the following phrase of RObert's - "If you want to ensure that 'moderate feminists' are awake up to the MTR's of the world..."

I mostly try to keep my tone 'moderate', but I've never cared whether or not I'm hugging the middle ground in any debate!

Hi Bronwyn,

Sorry to take so long to reply, but with regards your comment of "When I see intelligent people like yourself though, denying we even have a problem,", and with many of the subsequent posts:

With many of the issues in the world today, there will always be a negative to most situations, and in trying to put it right one has to ensure that the cure is not worse than the disease. This will depend largely on the background of each person.

For example, I consider that abortion is tragedy, however, the consequences of banning it are even worse. The only real option is to find a middle ground to try and exclude the excesses of either extreme.

Likewise, I am not happy with the sexualisation of children, but the brave new world that some are advocating where I need to self censor myself in case I might cause some minor offense, is even worse.

The middle ground where child porn is banned, but artists can still be controversial is where we are right now.

Bronwyn

I am so glad that you didn't take my comments personally. I enjoy all your contributions here whether or not we agree. You always make me think and re-evaluate my position.

I am so fed up with having to justify myself before so many judgemental posters like Steel or Usual S, BEFORE even getting to writing my opinion
on a topic. That we have to declare ourselves as a type of feminist is really appalling.

I don't see Steel justifying HIS position, yet he feels free to even question what I as a woman, believe feminism to be. And the ultimate irony is that we actually agree on our distinctions between art and porn. But you wouldn't think so.

With people like you, Pelican, Foxy, R0bert we can communicate and agree to disagree - that is soooooo encouraging. What a boring world if we all thought the same.

Keep up the thoughtful and well reasoned contributions. I do understand where you are coming from in this debate. My issue is that because we are so uncomfortable with sex and sexuality, that it (and us) continues to be exploited by our advertising media, hard-core pornographers and misanthropes in general.

Despite that fact it is an uphill battle I still strive towards an ideal that we can accept each other as valid individuals rather than capitulate to those who are trying to force a dogmatic cap on human endeavour.

>"I don't see Steel justifying HIS position"

This has been ongoing. I can't post all the justifications for my position every post, but I certainly did hint at it a couple back.

>"yet he feels free to even question what I as a woman, believe feminism to be. "

I may have been a little harsh but I used your own words, and those of others. You said there can be no distinction between feminists, hence MTR's views (and those of others) must be taken as part of the whole. Also more than one of you described feminism as a church. I never made this description.

Feminism could never have been conceived as a permanent movement, or at least it was never going to be one. All these activist movements will one day be obsolete. I think that day has more than arrived with the bias in our legal system and lawmaking (not just here, but in the US and Britain). I've learned of many incidents but one perfect example which I mentioned earlier (and which you did not pick up on...not really surprising to me though) is the institutional view of feminists that circumcision, specifically....only female circumcision.......is to be outlawed. This position shows extraordinary sexism and callous disregard for male children. This shows us that it is about sexism. Without feminism or in a truly gender neutral society or movement, these activists would not ignore a child about to be violated merely because he has the wrong gender.

I spoke about the non-permanence of movements like feminism and their increasingly frequent harmfulness. This corrosion and entropy can be seen in such small examples as this, for the racial equivalent (of feminism... don't read this analogy too literally as i consider them slightly differently, however the harm caused and the entropy is the same): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oc1zGRUPztc

Steel I think I brought the term "broad church" into the discussion (borrowing from little Johny). It's a way of saying the feminism covers a lot of ground with widely differeing views/beliefs in many areas and some common ground as well. It's not meant as a full scale parallel with religious faith.

I get there from time to time as well so I may be in a house which contains quite a lot of glass but one of the problems with harsh words when gentler ones will do is that they become fighting words rather than creating understanding.

It's sometimes easier to be stuck in a cycle of conflict than to try and step back and see the other side or to be the one to step away from the conflict and try and turn it to something else.

R0bert